Formal and Empirical Issues in Optimality Theoretic Syntax is a collection of selected works which involve a new approach to syntax by bringing together Optimality Theory (OT) and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). The volume's importance is precisely in this new approach, which differs greatly from other OT approaches to syntax. The book first develops formal foundations of Optimality Theory. The works within the volume then go on to analyze certain kinds of linguistic data, as well as more technical questions of the formal foundations, and of the utility of the approach in (industrial) natural language processing applications.

Peter Sells is associate professor in the department of linguistics at Stanford University. Joan Bresnan is professor of linguistics at Stanford University. Miriam Butt is a researcher at University of Konstanz. Tracy Holloway King is a researcher at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.